Rolling out some stats for June and July . . .
Complete versions of Communion of Dreams were downloaded 780 times in June, and another 692 in July, putting the total a bit shy of 26,000. Whew.
But the real news is with BBTI. On May 23 I wrote this:
Just a quick note: yesterday we crossed 2.5 million hits – total is 2,505,951. We’re averaging over 7,000 hits a day now, and at that rate we’ll break 3 million hits in about 10 weeks.
Well, we haven’t broken 3 million yet. But we will sometime late today, about a week earlier than I predicted. The total as of yesterday was 2,993,557 hits. That breaks down as 192,007 hits in June and 224,458 hits in July. That puts July as the second-highest all time total, with only the first full month the site was up beating it.
Well. Bit stunning, all in all.
Jim Downey
*Victor ‘Boss Vic Koss’ Kosslovich. Cross posted to the BBTI blog.
A bit early for my birthday, but last night after I got home from our trip out west and spent appropriate time petting the pets, I got around to checking the stats on my novel. And saw that while I was gone, we crossed 25,000 total downloads of the book.
As I noted two years ago when the downloads crossed the 10,000 mark, that’s kinda cool. And I am likewise pleased that the book seems to be maintaining its popularity.
So, thanks to one and all for helping to spread the word. With a little luck, I’ll have some more information soon about the actual publication date to share.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Time for a recap of April.
There were another 484 downloads of the ‘classic’ Communion of Dreams, and another 70 downloads of the 2010 revision. 134 people downloaded at least one of the MP3 files of the book, and 32 people downloaded at least one individual chapter. We’re quickly approaching at least 24,000 downloads of the book. Who woulda thunk it? I hope some % of those who have downloaded the book will also buy a hardcopy once it is published and out.
And over at Ballistics By The Inch, things continue apace. April was the third-highest month for total hits since we launched the site in November 2008, with a total of 178,170 hits. That puts us at 2,351,313 hits. I spent some time yesterday afternoon finally getting some links to BBTI on Wikipedia, and I’m sure that will help to keep hits climbing.
And so it goes.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI Blog.)
Sometimes, you just gotta admit that you’ve been defeated, and move on.
No, I’m not talking about my decision to have someone with a tractor come and till my garden this year, rather than doing it myself because of my recent muscle tear (which is actually healing quite well, thanks).
Instead, I’m talking about going on Facebook. Yeah, in spite of their privacy policies and the whole high-school-popularity-competition nonsense, I bit the bullet and signed up. A personal profile in my name, and when I can get a handle on the best way to do it I’ll also set up pages for my business, BBTI, and Communion of Dreams. If you have suggestions or pointers, feel free to drop me a note, leave a comment here, or (gods forbid, I can’t believe I’m saying this) post something to my ‘wall.’ And yes, you’re all invited to be my friend.
Gah.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Guns, Health, Hospice, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
As I have done for the last couple of years, I like to look at the stats for my sites on New Years Day – numbers don’t lie.
But they can be a bit confusing. Here’s how. In 2009, I could say that 9,619 people downloaded some or all of Communion of Dreams. That would break down as 5,877 downloads of the original “complete” .pdf of the book, 156 copies of the revised version, 3,183 of the first mp3, and 403 copies of the first chapter. Or I could say that there were a total of 6,765 downloads, using the numbers for the “complete” .pdfs plus the minimum downloads of both the mp3 and individual chapter files (on the theory that those numbers reflect “complete” downloads of the book in those formats.) For my year-end numbers in the past I have used the latter formula, and I will do so again.
So, 2009 had 6,765 downloads. That compares to 6,288 in 2007, and 6,182 in 2008. How many people have actually read the book, I have no idea – I have heard from people that they have passed on the .pdf they downloaded to friends, and others have told me that they printed the thing out and gave copies to others. So that would boost the numbers. Then again, just because someone downloaded the thing, doesn’t mean they read it. Lord knows I have plenty of books I own but have never gotten around to reading.
Which brings up another item – back in August I mentioned that I was working on a revision because there was a publisher who was interested in the book. In November I mentioned that I had submitted the manuscript with the revisions, and was waiting for them to take another look at it. Well, I’m still waiting, though the publisher said that he was going to assign it to one of their readers and go through it himself, and would get back to me soon. I’m not complaining about the wait – six weeks or so is not at all unreasonable – but I do wonder whether he just didn’t want to give me the bad news leading up to the holidays. So, we’ll see what comes of that.
I’m also in a “wait and see” mode on my two other writing projects. My co-author on the caregiving book Her Final Year still has to finish his editing before we can proceed with that, and I haven’t had a chance to get together with my sister to really get started on My Father’s Gun. But now that the end of the year is past, I hope to make progress on both of those soon.
Other aspects of life in 2009? A mix. I did get a lot of good conservation work done, though losing the one big client in the fall due to the economy hurt a lot – I have other work, but nowhere near as much, so that has hindered my efforts to resolve long standing debt leftover from the gallery. My health is better than it was a year ago, but I still need to lose several stones. The BBTI project was a huge success through 2009, and I’m sure will continue to be a source both of work and pleasure in the coming year. Otherwise, well, if you read this blog you probably already have had your fill of my introspection.
So, goodbye 2009, and best wishes to one and all for a better 2010.
Jim Downey
Or 1-800-Lotta-Posts.
Yup, this is post #800. And since I’ve gone this far, I should at least see it to 910.
OK, I’m in a bit of a silly mood. Blame it on the big muckin’ storm rolling our way.
Anyway, 800 posts. It’s been 6 months since the last big round number, so it looks like I have slowed down some in my posting, but not a lot. Since then, there have been another 12,000 hits to this blog, and about 5,000 more downloads of the novel. I’ll have a final tally on the year after the 1st, but it looks like things have picked up a bit overall in 2009.
Have a Merry Christmas, everyone. Be safe if you have to travel. And try not to let the family drive you nuts.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Guns, Humor, Marketing, Podcast, Promotion, RKBA, SCA
Had an interview last night, about the Ballistics By The Inch project, with the fellow who does the “Gun Nation” podcasts that are quite popular. Sent this humorous bit to a friend about it last night after it was over:
Funny bit to share from the interview this evening…
So, it was for a podcast this guy does about gun stuff. It’s a good podcast. The guy is a bit of a nerd, materials science researcher involved in working on the next generation of ballistic cloth (Kevlar, et cetera), but he does his show for a general audience. Anyway, he *loves* our project, and has been a bit nuts about wanting to do an interview for about six months, but one thing and another always kept getting in the way. But it finally worked out that we both had the free time to do it, at the same time.
We get to do the interview, about 45 minutes by phone (Skype, actually), of which he’ll probably use 20-30 minutes for his show. Goes well. Get done, and we’re just chatting a bit about the whole project, et cetera. He asks whether we’ve gotten information about it up on Wikipedia yet, and I say that I hadn’t gotten around to it. He misunderstands, thinks I don’t really appreciate Wikipedia’s power to help spread the word. I say, “well, I do – a couple of years ago someone put up a Wiki entry on me because of something else I did – I just need to update it, and get other links on there about the BBTI project.”
“Oh, what other thing?”
“Well, about 8 years ago I did this odd conceptual art project, called Paint the Moon.”
Pause.
“Paint the Moon??”
It was my turn to misunderstand. But I’m used to having to explain about that project, so I start. “Um, yeah, see . . .”
“That was YOU????”
“Well, yeah.”
“Oh my God, I’m in the presence of greatness.”
No kidding, that’s what he actually said. Evidently made the guy’s night to find out that his favorite geeky gun science project also involved the nut behind his favorite crazy artistic project…
Nerds. Go figure. 😉
* * * * * * *
My friend was amused, sent me an email about it this morning. In responding, I said this:
My wife and I both thought it pretty funny. I need to decide whether I can write it up for the blog without sounding like a self-aggrandizing ass. Though it’s not like worrying about that has stopped me in the past . . .
And I’ve been thinking about that for the last couple of hours.
Now, one of the things about blogging, and in using this blog like I do, it that it is for promotion. So there’s a certain amount of self-aggrandizement that goes with the territory.
But the truth of the matter is that for the most part, I find myself bewildered by attention. Yeah, sure, I long ago learned (in the SCA, as a matter of fact) how to cultivate a ‘public persona’ which I could use in that regard – a simulacrum, as it were, who could do the public speaking, the interviews, that sort of thing. It gives me the psychological distance necessary to handle the attention, deflect it without letting it crawl inside my head.
And that’s mostly what you see when I post stuff like this to the blog (or elsewhere). Because while I understand the need for people to have heroes, or leaders, or favorite artists/authors, et cetera, I always find myself completely bewildered to be in such a role. From my perspective, I’m just doing stuff anyone could do, and am only very lucky to have it noticed.
And now *that* sounds like another bit of self-aggrandizement.
Jeez – there’s no winning. Ah, well.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ballistics, Guns, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Just posted this over to the BBTI blog:
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here – there really isn’t much to say, day to day. But checking the numbers, I thought I would post a brief update which may be of interest.
October had over 140,000 hits to the BBTI site, which puts our total to date to 1,477,315. At present trends (we get between 4 and 5 thousand hits a day), we should cross 1.5 million sometime in the next week – less than one year since our initial launch! That’s pretty cool.
One of the more recent referrers that I found to be amusing was this one: http://feulibre.forumactif.com/ But we have had links from sites in Russian, Korean, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish, Italian, Portugese, Chinese, . . . you get the idea. Ballistics By The Inch is a decidedly global resource. Which I also think is pretty cool.
And update info for Communion of Dreams: October had over 875 downloads of the novel, putting the total downloads to date to something in excess of 19,500. Even better news – this morning I will finish up editing work on the novel which a publisher requested, and we should get a supplemental .pdf posted to the site with that manuscript in the next couple of days. With a little luck, the publisher will like the revisions, and before the end of the year I’ll have a deal to conventionally publish the book. Keep you fingers crossed for me.
Happy November, everyone!
Jim Downey
PS: I have now finished the editing – having eliminated 23,620 words in total from the manuscript. We’ll get a .pdf of the revised version posted to the CoD site later today.
Communion Of Dreams 